article on US and East Asia

[bornonaug9]

The real 'China threat'
By Chalmers Johnson

I recall 40 years ago, when I was a new professor working in the field of Chinese and Japanese international relations, that Edwin O Reischauer once commented, "The great payoff from our victory of 1945 was a permanently disarmed Japan." Born in Japan and a Japanese historian at Harvard, Reischauer served as US ambassador to Tokyo in the administrations of presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Strange to say, since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and particularly under the administration of George W Bush, the United States has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even accelerate Japanese rearmament.

Such a development promotes hostility between China and Japan, the two superpowers of East Asia, sabotages possible peaceful solutions in those two problem areas, Taiwan and North Korea, left over from the Chinese and Korean civil wars, and lays the foundation for a possible future Sino-American conflict that the United States would almost surely lose. It is unclear whether the ideologues and war lovers of Washington understand what they are unleashing - a possible confrontation between the world's fastest-growing industrial economy, China, and the world's second-most-productive, albeit declining, economy, Japan; a confrontation that the United States would have caused and in which it might well be consumed.
..........

Why should China's emergence as a rich, successful country be to the disadvantage of either Japan or the United States? History teaches us that the least intelligent response to this development would be to try to stop it through military force. As a Hong Kong wisecrack has it, China has just had a couple of bad centuries and now it's back. The world needs to adjust peacefully to its legitimate claims - one of which is for other nations to stop militarizing the Taiwan problem - while checking unreasonable Chinese efforts to impose its will on the region. Unfortunately, the trend of events in East Asia suggests we may yet see a repetition of the last Sino-Japanese conflict, only this time the US is unlikely to be on the winning side.

(Source citations and other references for this article are available on the website of the Japan Policy Research Institute.)

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute.

A very long but interesting analysis about East asia
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GC19Ad05.html

 

[Peeping Tom]

Add more of those bad centuries if they try anything funny with Japan.

 

[bornonaug9]

Dispute over island Korea and Japan

Analysis: Seoul leaving U.S.-led alliance?
By Jong-Heon Lee
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Published March 23, 2005



SEOUL -- Is South Korea distancing itself from the U.S.-led alliance that has dominated Northeast Asia, counterbalancing the communist bloc led by China?

This is the question of the moment as President Roh Moo-hyun has vowed to seek a new role for the country on the balance of power among Pacific powers, saying it will no longer be heavily dependent on the United States.

.......
.......
......

Seoul's move toward a new regional security role comes in the wake of worsening ties with Japan over its attempts to glorify past wrongdoings and territorial claims to a South Korean island.

To cope with Japan's territorial claims, South Korea declared it would discard a long-standing "policy of neglect." South Korea has maintained a low-key stance to prevent the issue from escalating into a full-scale territorial dispute.

President Roh has led the campaign against Japan. On Wednesday, Roh pledged to take "stern responses" against Japan's territorial claims and attempts to distort history.

"We will now have no choice but to deal sternly with Japan's attempt to justify its history of aggression and colonialism and revive regional hegemony," Roh said in a message posted on the presidential office's Web site.

The Seoul government also reaffirmed its opposition to the Japanese effort to win a permanent seat on the United Nation's Security Council. "It is a prerequisite for Japan to win the trust of its neighbors to become a global leader," said Chung, who chairs the presidential National Security Council.

But critics raise concerns that South Korea may be diplomatically isolated in the region as the strained ties with Japan come at a time when Seoul's ties with Washington were also frayed over how to deal with North Korea.

The concerns were boosted by suspicions that Japan's renewed claims to the South Korean island were largely motivated by its stronger alliance with the United States.

"Japan's territorial disputes with neighbors are backed by the United States as part of strategic efforts to ward off China, which is raising tensions across the Taiwan Strait," a Seoul-based diplomat said.

The United States officially stays away from the Seoul-Japan territorial dispute, but its silence is widely considered as a sign that it backs Japan's position.

During her visit over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice avoided direct responses to the questions of South Korean journalists, saying only that the United States maintains good relations with both Seoul and Tokyo.

President Roh explained the flareup with Japan to Rice, asking that Washington to side with Seoul, but she said nothing about the dispute. In Tokyo, however, Rice praised Japan's role in international affairs, pledging to support Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Seoul officials had hoped that the United States would play a role in persuading Japan to withdraw its territorial claims to Dokdo Island.

Opposition leader Park Geun-hye blamed Roh's move for fueling security concerns in South Korea. "We feel worried about President Roh's move to weaken the alliance with the United States," she said.

"Close coordination among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo is vital to end North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions," said Kim Tae-hyun, a professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. "Stronger ties between Seoul and Washington are also necessary to defuse the territorial dispute with Japan," he said.

 

[red]

A couple of bad centuries???? The last time China challenged the west with it's military Gengis Khan was running things - Oh! my mistake he was a Mongol who defeated China.



bbk

what happened in the Korean war? was that the mongols too?

 

[bornonaug9]

US needed to settle dispute and mistrust between Korea and Japan before turning their attentions to N. Korea. Is US losing control on Japan?

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200503/kt2005033015444610160.htm

Seoul Seeks `Balanced Pragmatic' Diplomacy

By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

South Korea will pursue ``balanced pragmatism’’ in its diplomacy this year, focusing on reshaping relations with Japan and China based on a correct historical perception and developing a future-oriented alliance with the United States.

In his annual report of major policy goals to the head of state, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon laid out four main objectives and 20 detailed tasks as objectives for by his ministry, including a peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear standoff.

After receiving the briefing, President Roh Moo-hyun reiterated that South Korea should play a ``balancing’’ role in Northeast Asia based on its robust alliance with the U.S. in order to realize peace and prosperity in a rapidly changing region.

As for the country’s soured relationship with Japan, Roh asked the ministry to cope with the situation based on a firm principle, Minister Ban said in a media briefing later in the day.

``President Roh said a correct understanding of the two countries’ shared history should be the basis of their relations,’’ Ban told reporters. But he added Seoul would maintain diplomatic and other exchanges with Japan as scheduled, including a summit between President Roh and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

 

[bornonaug9]

Can Japan be trusted to become a permanent member of UNSC? Korea says 'No'


http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200504/kt2005040115581911950.htm

S. Korea Moves to Block Japan's UNSC Bid


By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

South Korea has rolled up its sleeve to thwart Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Kim Sam-hoon, ambassador to the U.N., Thursday heralded a clear shift in Seoul's position from the previous ``indirect opposition'' to an active diplomatic drive to keep Japan from obtaining a seat in the top U.N. security body.

``There are difficulties for a country, which does not have the trust of its regional neighbors because of its lack of reflection on its past, to play the role of a world leader,'' Kim said at a meeting with Korean correspondents in New York.

``We do not think Japan has the qualifications to become a U.N. Security Council member, and we will try to make sure it does not become one,'' he added.

Japan has put itself on a collision course with both China and South Korea, as well as North Korea, in recent years as its leaders from time to time provoked its neighboring countries with improper statements and actions, triggering historical and territorial disputes.

In particular, Japan has recently created diplomatic friction with South Korea because of a series of attempts by Tokyo to lay claim to Tokto (Dokdo) in the East Sea. A new middle school textbook in Japan further exacerbated tensions as it glorifies the atrocities Japan committed during World War II.

.................


U.N. member nations have been discussing ways to reform the 15-member Security Council, with one of the two concrete options _ both increasing the total number of seats to 24 _ most likely being adopted.

Germany, India, Brazil and Japan, which openly declared their bids for permanent membership in an expanded Security Council, favor Plan A, which will increase the number of permanent members from five to 11 and non-permanent members from 10 to 13.

Instead of creating more permanent members, South Korea and other countries want to raise the number of non-permanent members in the UNSC.

``Our first goal will be thwarting Plan A,'' Kim said. ``Though we're not opposed any particular country's bid, we simply believe that a country not trusted by its regional neighbors cannot be a world leader.''

Any UNSC reform plan, which requires revision of the U.N. Charter, cannot be approved if any of the current five permanent members wields its veto rights.

A strong ally of Japan, the United States gave public support for Tokyo. China, though it has not so far made its position clear, has a similar stance with South Korea, according to sources.